Hybrid::Mixed-Positions
by Chronic Guardian
Summary: What if the Game didn't take what was most important to you? What if you learned to care about others by literally experiencing life through their perspective? One shots based on the Hybrid Timeline influenced by an idea from EeveeGen9988. [Hybrid AU]


**Hybrid::Mixed-Positions**

]+By Chronic Guardian+[

**-0110-Links of Character-**

**Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Hexa-Code Kernel, Week 6: Link()**

**Hybrid Spoilers. You have been Warned.**

**For Aviantei, **

**who I am not, but that's okay**

]+Day 1+[

_Trust your partner. _

_Because if you don't, you'll never be you again._

Amber blinked as the words echoed through her head, pounding against the inside of her skull like tennis balls in a clothes dryer. The world seemed to warp, twist, then come back into focus just before she lost her balance.

_Well, at least they let me be conscious for the part where I get screwed over…_

She felt herself going into free fall as an anxious pinch settled in at the nape of her neck. Unless she could get her hands behind her to break the fall, there was a good chance she would just collapse backwards and crack her skull. And even if that didn't prove fatal, the demon frogs almost certainly would.

_But why would they rig the Game like that?_ she wondered as her ankles slipped. The whole world seemed to slow down as her brain kicked into analytical overdrive, almost as if all her reflexive functions had already given up on the situation and converted into pure processing power. She was about to die and all she could think about was how unfair it was. To a certain point of view, it was almost morbidly comical.

Maybe that was the twist of the Game, she realized, maybe it was more of a cat-and-mouse affair. That would make sense with how Uncle H regarded Kariya, who was at least close enough to the Game to see it going on. If the Game was more oriented towards the curators than the Players, then the possibility of her success became a courtesy to keep the curators amused. She wasn't owed a fair shake, she wasn't owed life, she wasn't even owed a quick death, now that she thought about it. The whole thing was a play, and she was just a convenient puppet.

Or, given her current trajectory, perhaps an inconvenient puppet who would now be disposed of.

...How unfortunate.

"Hey!" the boy she'd just entered a pact with—the blond who had been sitting on the pavement—moved to catch her. His hands closed on her arms and managed to pull her back to a wobbly upright position. She blinked as he pushed lightly down, as if to plant her feet firmly in the ground, before stepping backward and taking a shaky breath. "Everything alright in there?"

"Fine, thanks," she answered, brushing off the concern before she could even consider what was happening. "Why? You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

Well… fine might have been an overstatement. She hadn't begun falling over again just yet, so that was something, but she still had an encyclopedia of questions regarding what had just happened and why she felt like she'd just been hit by a train. Those could wait until she'd properly sorted them out in her head, though. Voicing a half-baked diagnosis wouldn't help anyone in any case, certainly not a total stranger.

"You…" the boy narrowed his eyes in anxious suspicion and leaned in a little closer.

Amber gently corrected their distance with one hand and put on a frank smile. "Not that your lack of personal boundaries isn't charming or anything," she began, "but you think we could at least wait until we've—" she almost said 'fought off these frogs,' but little devils seemed to have disappeared for the moment. Ah, well, they weren't the only excuse on the table. "—traded names?"

"Ah, right! Sorry, sorry," the boy leaned back, still looking like he was afraid she might be made of glass. "I… my name is Rueban, Rueban Kiryu. 'Rue' works, if that's more comfortable for you. I'm… sorry you have to go through this."

Amber felt her blood run cold, but still smirked. There was always the possibility her intuition was malfunctioning, and it wouldn't do her any good to just assume he knew what he was talking about right away. For now, the best option was probably just to humor him. "Hmm? Go through what?"

She tried not to scream inside as a lightly sarcastic drawl slipped its way into her response. Was this supposed to happen? She wanted distance, but she didn't mean to belittle him just yet.

_Just yet? _The qualifier seemed to come automatically. It wasn't anything personal, she just wanted to keep her options open. If this "Rue Kiryu" turned out to be an unstable psychopath, she didn't want to find herself too deeply reliant on him.

_Not that he's much worse off than you…_

"How do I put this…" Kiryu grimaced and looked to the side."You're... like how I am now. Er, _was_. I _was_ like that and you were like this. We've become eachother. Or, that's what I _think_ just happened. A straight across trade, you know?"

"A trade?"

"Right. In personalities. Like I said—"

"Ah, yes, so we've adopted eachother's primary cognitive traits." Amber nodded as the previously unsaid component of their conversation clicked into place. He wasn't talking about a body swap, he was talking about dispositions. He understood the hyper-analytical overdrive going on beneath her mask because that was what he was usually like.

So then, that would mean his rather apparent anxieties were what she had been like.

"Hmph, well I dare say I got the better end of the bargain," she replied lightly.

Or, at least, the more socially secure one. Barely a minute in and she could already tell a difference in verbal discipline. Even if her mouth was mostly running on automatic, every response felt guarded, polished, and perfectly presented to quietly assert conversational dominance.

It was exhilarating, in a disquieting kind of way.

"Anyway," Kiryu sighed. "I know you don't _want_ to say so, but..."

"My, what volumes that blush speaks."

His cheeks only reddened further. "Oh, can it, would you? You know I'm no more interested in that sort of thing than you would have been."

"And you know I'm only teasing you as much as you would have," she countered calmly, examining her nails so she wouldn't have to face him. "Fair is fair."

"Right… well, anyway, it'd be nice if I could have your name."

"Oh, my _name_? Well! If that's all you want—"

"You don't have to be so dramatic about it," he cut in, feeding her guilty pleasure with a slight rise in his voice. So easy to manipulate... "I—well, _we—_are kind of stuck with eachother, so it's not like I can give up on you now. Not if it means you'll get stuck like this."

"Like this? Why, whatever do you mean?" She could understand in his case, of course. He'd been left as a socially incompetent blatherer without any sort of filter between brain and mouth. Even if he could formulate an apt observation before her, he did the whole thing out in the open without any polish. But for her?

He glared. "We both know what I mean. Now stop dodging the question or I'll have to come up with a nickname or something."

Amber put on a sardonic smile for cover and paused to assess the situation. Beyond some petty amusement, she wasn't really gaining much by antagonizing him. Why was it so instinctively important to keep her name a secret? Was she just looking for leverage?

"Look, I get it," Kiryu pushed on, "anything anybody wants is something you can use to make them do something. But I'm not asking for me, okay? I..." he stopped and blinked. "Well, okay, let me try that again."

"So it _is_ for you."

"Partly, kind of. I—look, I'm still getting used to thinking like this. How in the world do you manage being so honest about everything? It's like I _know_ you get me, but I still have to make extra sure."

Amber chuckled. "You inherit my messy-bedroom of a mindset and you think I actually examined it?"

"You might've," Kiryu sighed, crossing his arms and looking away. "We didn't switch memories, and it'd be kind of rude to assume."

"Rude, but likely accurate."

"Huh, 'likely'..." he murmured. "So if you're not one-hundred-percent confirming it, you're secretly saying you _did_ think about it."

"Or I could be giving you room to actually use your brain. Seemed like you could use the exercise."

"Oh, shut up. I know how I think."

"How you _thought_."

"...Right. Well, anyway, we can hash those details out after we finish the mission. I guess we can get by for now without a name."

The mission? Ah, yes. They had to complete missions to survive. Somehow that seemed incredibly unimportant to her in the moment. Was that why she was burning time with Kiryu?

Filing the question away for later, Amber nodded and gave a theatric eye-roll. "Oh, very well. As you wish."

Even so, she felt a guilty twist in her stomach as Kiryu let her have her way.

]+Day 2+[

"So, if you're not gonna give me a name, I think I've got one that should work."  
"Mmm?" Amber looked up from her breakfast, generously paid for by the obsequious Mr. Kiryu, and raised her eyebrows at her partner. "A name for me? Why, you shouldn't have!"

"...You know, I was gonna go with 'Kotone', but now I'm thinking we should just skip the subtlety and call you 'Harpy'."

Amber paused a moment to consider the possible connection between the two—much as she was tempted to label anything Kiryu said as nonsense at this point—then smiled when she caught the pun. "Well, isn't that adorable," she said, going back to her breakfast. "'Sound of the Harp' and 'Harpy'. Too bad I'm not the demanding one in this relationship. Talk about a missed opportunity..."

Kiryu just frowned and looked back down to his own breakfast. "At least I tried."

"And you even did it without spoiling the joke before you had it all in order," Amber added, giving him a golf clap for his efforts. The long suffering battle of yesterday had convinced her to give up on fighting her patronizing instincts. "We're _so_ proud."

"You know…" he mumbled. "I get that this is how you really are now. But I _know_ you can do better. Can't you just…?" He trailed off into a grimace and shook his head. "No, forget it. It's probably better this way."

"And if not better, at least more amusing."

Which was funny, because her new personality seemed perfectly suited to making a joke of the world, but inversely willing to appreciate it. She wasn't toying with Kiryu because it was fun, she was testing him, repeatedly cutting his legs out from under him to see how many times he'd get back up. She was trying to wear away the outside fluff and make him show his true colors.

The real kicker was that, deep down, she knew he wasn't acting. She remembered what she'd been like; it was just so absurdly naive that her current personality couldn't believe it. There _had_ to be more. Nobody could honestly be like that.

Nobody but her.

It was a curious thing, looking at her memories through someone else's eyes and hardly recognizing herself. Was that what it was like for Kiryu? He seemed awfully touchy about something. Did he not like encountering someone so sophisticated as himself?

She smirked to herself. Maybe he just wasn't used to being on the receiving end of so much sarcasm.

"I'm not gonna ask you to be something you're not," he said at last, still glaring at his breakfast.

"Because you've finally realized I'm not the dysfunctional one in this relationship?"

"Because I know you can fake it just enough to make me shut up."

Amber stared and waited for her brain to come up with a clever comeback.

He didn't ask her name again, and they finished their breakfast in silence.

]+Day 3+[

"_It's not fair, you know."_

"Of course it's not fair, it's life. But what are you going to do about it, Kiryu?"

"_I mean… I'd say it's what _we're_ going to do about it, but you're more interested in poking holes in my ego than helping._"

"Well, if you just grew up a little, maybe I wouldn't read you so easily."

She could practically feel Kiryu's eyes burning through to her side of the Noise plane, but he'd gotten better at holding in his thoughts all through yesterday. Honestly, his progress was kind of astounding—not that she'd say as much to his face.

_"__I'm not talking about that,"_ he grumbled as she slammed the ground to bring out a row of luminous spears, skewering the current Noise in front of her. They crumbled to static and she turned to mop up the last of them: a set of wriggly Minks writhing their way through the air. "_I'm saying you're kinda missing the whole point of a partnership_."

"Yes, and _I'm_ saying I don't play well with emotional infants. So if you could just learn to listen and get on my level then maaaybe I wouldn't have to be the adult here."

"_Oh, you're the adult?"_

"Again, Kiryu, try to keep up."

"_I'm the one that figured out where we could track the most pin diversity the fastest and _you're_ the adult._"

"And I applaud your contribution," Amber returned curtly. "Now if you could just do it without pining for attention, I might actually give you full credit."

Kiryu paused, and for a second Amber thought she was going to get to finish the last Noise in peace. She settled into a ready stance and tracked its ponderous approach, but just before she swung—

"_I don't think you want to change back._"

"You mean becoming like you again?" she grunted as the Noise frog missed her by a few centimeters, then spun around and sent a spear through its back. "My, what ever gave you that impression?"

The world shifted and hummed, then clicked back into focus as they remodulated to the normal UG. Seeing her partner appear again beside her, Amber gave his scowl a dry smile.

"Because you think I trust the world to be something it isn't," he said. "You think I'm just crashing my way through this while you're keeping yourself safe."

"Well…" Amber sucked in and looked away, pretending to examine the pins their battle had produced. "...aren't you?"

Finally, Kiryu sighed and his subconscious undercurrent went from exasperated to pleading. "...It doesn't have to be this way."

Amber's smile stayed on, but something in her stomach twisted.

"No," she agreed quietly. "It doesn't."

She didn't want to say the words, she wasn't even sure if it was a good idea to give Kiryu this particular inch. And yet, in the same way that she had so effortlessly parried everything he said, she'd uttered that damning consensus.

Silence settled between them. Contrary to her intuitive fears, Kiryu didn't take advantage of the opening. After so desperately pushing her on the subject, she'd expected more from him. Maybe not in terms of quality, sure, but definitely quantity.

Then again, maybe it was fitting that his victory left him at a loss for words. With his strong reliance on emotional reasoning, she had to wonder if he even knew what he'd been hoping for.

The comfort from the thought was only barely enough to match the fear that the same could be said of her.

]+Day 4+[

Unlike the past three days, Day Four of the Reaper's Game began pre-dawn. However, seeing as the mission wasn't in yet, Amber decided she was boycotting free time until they got their daylight privileges back.

"Another day," Kiryu murmured, standing nearby with her stuffed animal in his arms. Ever since the switch, he'd been using Mewt to fight. Amber didn't know the specifics, but so long as the cat came back in one piece she wasn't too worried about it.

"Depending on what you count as the start of the day, yes."

"Technically it's well after midnight."

"And hopefully well before the mission," Amber muttered back, waving his comments off. "Can't you go find a comfortable dumpster to take a nap in or something?"

"Well, I _could_ lie on a bus bench like you if you weren't taking the only one on the block."

"Sorry, Kiryu, prime real estate. Your impeccable business sense simply won't allow me to surrender such an asset."

"I'd like to give my impeccable business sense an impeccable bloody nose about now..."

Amber simply smiled at the retort. Not the most creative, but it was at least fun. He'd gotten better at adjusting to her frequency.

"What's got you so riled up anyway, Kiryu?" she asked after a beat. "It's not like we have anything better to do."

"...Yeah, maybe."

She arched a lazy eyebrow. "Maybe?"

"Just this feeling I've got," he said, looking off towards the route they'd taken yesterday up into Udagawa. "Something I did in the RG."

"Mmm… think you could be a little more specific about this 'something'?"

"...I did it because of who I was."

Amber felt a chuckle escape her lips. Not an actual humorous chuckle, of course, but the sarcastic sound of understanding. Kiryu's face reddened, but he didn't retort. He knew she wasn't getting the wrong idea.

"So it's a matter of pride, then."

Kiryu blinked. Maybe he wasn't reading her after all. Realizing this, Amber considered her options between rescinding the comment or just taking full control of the conversation while her partner was stunned.

Before she could fully commit to either, he recovered.

"You're… willing to admit it," he said slowly, and suspiciously without any interrogative inflection.

"What, you thought I wouldn't catch on?"  
"No, just… usually I'm not able to own up to it like that."

"Well it wasn't me who did it," she shrugged, "so it's hardly _my_ loss."

"But it's still my—_our—_personality," he insisted. "I mean, I guess it just… I didn't expect it to take criticism. It's usually more self-preserving than that."

Amber put on a covering smile. Inside, she felt herself quietly shifting into a more defensive mindset, formulating counter arguments and conversational redirects. She briefly considered just agreeing for now to see if that got him to drop the subject, but Kiryu obviously knew too much for that to work. If she wanted to end this conversation she'd have to focus on her previous personality's weaknesses.

She would have to cow him.

"Oh, _it_," she gave him a mock understanding look and bobbed her head. "So you were framed into doing something awful by your personality and now you're afraid it won't take the blame. My, isn't that a wonderful premise for a crime novel?"

Kiryu sighed and looked away. "I know you understand," he muttered. "I know there's still something in you that knows it's wrong. You can't live like this forever."

"Personal experience?"

Amber froze. The words slipped out, just like yesterday. They still had that perfectly articulated mocking lilt, but something in her already knew they wouldn't be doing her any favors.

Holding her still gaze, Kiryu nodded. "Yeah..." he said quietly. "That's… that's what I'm afraid of."

]+Day 5+[

Kiryu was right about the mission, because why the hell not? They ended up stopping an unwitting accomplice who'd sold him the drugs he'd used. Amber had attempted to brush it off and move on, but the full realization had effectively knocked the wind out of her sails. After that, all she'd more or less fallen into functional comments only. Kiryu put in a little effort to draw her out of it, but the mostly it was all he could do to get them through the mission.

Part of Amber still wanted to say it was his fault, that his actions had nothing to do with the personality now guiding her thoughts, but she was also too logical to ignore the connection.

What she couldn't figure out was why Rueban wasn't ecstatic to be rid of his fatal flaws. Sure, if they made it through the week then he'd be right back to where he started, but that shouldn't stop him from enjoying his freedom while he had it. It wasn't like she'd been particularly mindful of the long game before they'd switched. Why couldn't he just be happy as he was?

Well, for the moment he at least seemed content. A good half hour after she'd gotten up and he was still asleep. Amber sat on the curb and watched his chest gently rise and fall. She was almost tempted to reclaim Mewt until he woke up, but her sense of dignity was still active enough to forbid being seen with stuffed animals, even if it would only be by other Players. In the meantime, she would just watch and wonder about him and his infuriating persistence.

For the first time that week, she found herself actually thinking about why he acted the way he did. A cursory glance could easily misconstrue it an odd vengeance or selfish interest, but that theory fell apart once she considered her feelings towards her own misplaced personality. She didn't feel any ownership or connection to her past self in the moment, so it seemed logical to assume Kiryu would feel the same. Sure, part of it was his memories of what had happened, but his current disposition went a lot further towards determining what he did with those memories. But if he wasn't acting out of self-interest or long-term fear, then what was it?

Amber's mouth twisted. Was it pity? No, it couldn't be. Why should he feel sorry for her? Once the week was over, she'd be fine. Even if they weren't successful and were erased in the process, she still wouldn't ever progress to the point he had. Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone and enjoy the moment?

_It's because he cares about you._ _The poor idiot actually cares about you being broken, even if you won't stay that way_.

The words came in her own voice. She'd kind of gotten used to blocking the internal commentary over the course of the week, but now her mental barriers were down and it hit her full force. She felt her throat tighten and her chest heave. Tears wanted to come to her eyes, but they stayed dry somehow. Could she not even cry anymore?

In front of her, Kiryu stirred. Pulling herself together, she wiped at her dry eyes and cleared her throat. He would know, but she did it anyway. She couldn't stop herself at this point, she had to put on a perfect face for the world to see.

By the time he opened his eyes, she was back to normal. Her face was calm and her breathing was regular. Her hands just sat folded in her lap like nothing was wrong.

And yet, he stared as if he saw through her soul.

She stared back. Her mind didn't even know how to react at this point. She couldn't muster the energy to push him away. It wouldn't matter even if she did. He knew what she was going through. He knew why she tried so hard to cut him down.

"Hey," he croaked, pulling himself up to a sit.

Amber shifted her mouth into a neutral smile on instinct. "Morning."

Everything was fine. Everything was under control. He didn't have to know. He didn't—

"I still care about you."

She paused, gave him a measuring look, then went back to smiling. "Of course," she replied. "I've done nothing wrong."

_I am nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with me. I'm fine. Don't press it, you bastard. Don't you dare try to say I need you_. _Don't—_

"I know," he said. "But… if I could ask you for a favor… something to take care of when we're done here."

"So long as it isn't anything too taxing, I suppose."

"Remind me. You know, when I'm me again and you're you. Remind me I can trust you."

"Trust me?" her smile crumbled. "You don't even know my name."

"I don't care," he insisted. "I can see who you are, who I am. When we change back, whoever you are, you need to know you're someone wonderful. You're not a nobody. You… if you only knew what I know about how you see the world..."

Staring into his eyes, Amber took a breath and pushed past her reservations.

"Amber," she said.

"...What?"

"The person you're trusting," she went on. "You're trusting Amber Hanekoma."

"Amber..." he repeated quietly. "I, uh… Thank you."

"Yeah," she looked away and savored the slow release as she stopped having to regulate her breathing. "Don't mention it, Rueban."

**]+End+[**

**Author's Note**:

Yes, in case you were wondering, this author's note was not in the original version because I was slipping in under the wire for posting day. Aren't deadlines fun? 

Anyway, here we are! A variation on Hybrid in which instead of characters losing entry fees they swap personalities with their partner. And while I'm sure I could hand-wave some in universe explanation into existence (Joshua thought it would be funny to metaphorically walk a mile in eachothers shoes), the _real_ reason for this switch is a conversation with fellow TWEWY author EeveeGen9988, wherein she mentioned this possible alternative. I think the original run around we discussed ended up with giving Beat Joshua's personality or something (assuming Neku stayed switched after week 2 due to the technicalities with Josh), but the idea was intriguing enough that I thought it worth developing within the Hybrid framework. Self indulgent much? Oh, of course, but that's pretty much all of this year's TSoS. Hopefully it was still bearable/cohesive, regardless.

Finally, a big shout out to the Twelve Shots of Summer Crew for fighting on to produce one shots all throughout this summer heat and a very happy birthday to Aviantei, for being a wonderful partner in crime. When Hybrid finishes up (we're looking at October for the final chapter) it will be because she is an amazingly supportive human being. Love you, Avi. May your adventures of getting into others' heads be less harrowing than those expressed here.

See you next week for **Burn()**!

-CG

[15-JUL-2019]


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